


The Web

by DownToTheSea



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, Tenderness, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24971272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToTheSea/pseuds/DownToTheSea
Summary: While traveling between worlds, Balthamos and Baruch are separated.
Relationships: Balthamos/Baruch
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	The Web

**Author's Note:**

> For the Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt: Supernatural Fear Inducer.

The void between worlds wasn’t a pleasant place at the best of times. (“In case you couldn’t guess from the name,” Balthamos would have said drily.) Angels had somewhat freer reign within than humans, as their greater sight allowed them to make sense of what a human would perceive as an incomprehensible realm of writhing shadow, yet even so, weaker angels had been known to fly in and never fly out again. For that reason, Balthamos and Baruch never separated whenever they ventured inside.

At least, not intentionally.

No matter how tightly their hands were clasped, the amorphous mass of black scales and rippling fins surging between them would have pulled them apart. It paid them little heed, but its mere movement was enough to catch Baruch in its wake and send him spiraling far off course. When he had righted himself, Balthamos was nowhere to be found.

_ Balthamos!  _ He didn’t dare utter a cry out loud, knowing it would bring unwanted attention to them, so he broadcasted it through their mental link instead, trying to open his mind as much as possible. He could feel Balthamos close by, but his thoughts were muted and his mind dark, as though someone had drawn a thick curtain between them, and he could no longer sense where he was.

He hovered in mid-air – or what passed for mid-air where there was neither air nor ground – and looked around frantically. Although the void world appeared to be an endless pit of black, he knew that in reality it was a labyrinth of twisting dimensions, and that once he had lost Balthamos there was very little chance of finding him again, but he looked anyway. As long as they were alive, Baruch believed with every fiber of his being that they would always find their way back to each other.

He might not have been a powerful angel, but even he couldn’t fail to give off at least some light in this place; every time his wings beat and he caught their faint aura of gold out of the corner of his eye, he felt as if he might as well have been a lit beacon announcing  _ here I am, come and devour me! _

Balthamos should have been giving off the same light that Baruch was, yet it was nowhere to be seen. There had to be something blocking them from each other. Baruch was uneasily aware that while it could simply have been a curve or a shift in the nebulous landscape, it could also have been something else. There were enormous creatures in here, the extra-dimensional space allowing some to grow beyond what humans could even comprehend, and while most of them didn’t trouble themselves with the incorporeal angels that flitted through their world, some of them might if the angels proved annoying enough. By, say, hovering in one place for too long giving off unnatural amounts of light.

_ Then you had better stop doing that, hadn’t you?  _ he could almost hear Balthamos say.

Baruch certainly wasn’t about to leave without him; that left him with only one option. Gritting his teeth, he winged off in a random direction, trusting his instincts to lead him to Balthamos where his senses failed him.

Time passed strangely here. He thought he searched for hours, but it could have been minutes or it could have been a full day. Every time his strength flagged, he remembered the first and only time he had been in this place as a human. Balthamos hadn’t dared to bring him here until the choice had been taken away from him and it was the only escape they had. But he had been by his side the whole time, guiding him, supporting him, even daring to speak to him in a low voice to relieve the watchful silence of innumerable eyes on them. Baruch ached at the thought that Balthamos was out there alone somewhere and he couldn’t do the same for him.

Then, amid the choking shadows, he spotted a glint of light. In the blink of an eye he had changed directions and was hurtling towards it as fast as he possibly could, aware that the landscape might change again and he’d lose it.

As he got closer he could tell that it  _ was  _ Balthamos, not a trick of the void or, worse, an angel from Heaven, but any relief he might have felt was washed away immediately. Balthamos was hovering in mid-air too, but his wings weren’t moving; they were pinned to his back by some invisible force, the same one that was holding him up. He looked stiff and unnatural hanging there, his head thrown back.

Baruch soared over to him anxiously. Whatever was blocking their connection was still there, and all he could pick up was a distant, muddled sense of fear, but just looking at Balthamos was enough. His eyes were wide and terrified. This near, Baruch could see ghostly white tendrils wrapping around him, biting into his wings and arms. He tried to follow them back to their source, but they seemed to disappear a short distance away.

Peering into the blackness beyond, he was struck by the overwhelming feeling that someone was right behind him.

Something crawled on the back of his scalp, down through his hair to brush against his neck and curl against his throat. Baruch swallowed.

_There is so much fear in him._ The voices didn’t come from behind him, but from the air all around. Below them was a susurrus of other, lower voices, whispering in languages even he didn’t speak. They laughed quietly, the sound still echoing through his ears. _We barely had to try to bring it to the surface. Almost as delicious as a human’s._

A pause.  _ You have a human soul… _

Whatever was holding onto him crept down his shoulder, wrapping around his chest and arm.

Slowly, trying to keep his movements as subtle as possible, Baruch reached out his other hand to touch Balthamos’s wrist.

In that brief moment of contact, their connection flared to life; he felt Balthamos’s terror as if it was his own, hopeless and all-consuming. His hand fell back and it faded away again to background noise, but the panic lingered. Old human instincts took over and he found himself breathing hard, even if there wasn’t any air here.

He had only caught a few flashes of the images in Balthamos’s mind: another war, the sky torn apart and the earth shaking under the thundering chaos of wrathful angels clashing on the battlefield, Balthamos trapped in the middle of it all, his eyes screwed shut in a futile effort to block out the searing light of a million angels together. And another image: his own face crumbling into dust, Balthamos’s desperate attempts to clutch his hand failing as that dissipated too; his angel left behind, alone, weeping, desolate grief bowing his head.

“Balthamos,” he whispered, longing to comfort him.

Reaching out again, he brushed the tips of his fingers across Balthamos’s, this time preparing himself for the tide of fear. He fought his way through it, trying to get through to his mind; he was almost close enough to be sure that Balthamos would hear him when the grip on him tightened and yanked him away, breaking their connection once more. But he must have gotten close enough.

“Baruch!” Balthamos cried wildly, his voice high and sharp and piercing through the endless void like lightning splitting the sky. There was a rumbling hum in answer, and then a dreadful stillness. All around them, Baruch saw eyes opening out of the darkness: some small and glowing, others as wide across as his entire wingspan, all fixed on the two glowing angels and the spiderweb in which they were caught. 

The tendrils around him went taut.

“You’re afraid,” Baruch said in wonder. “Of them.”

Balthamos seemed to have regained at least some consciousness; his eyes, still wide and fearful, searched out Baruch’s, then flicked behind him. “You don’t care so much for fear when it’s your own, I gather,” he said thinly.

_ Be silent! _

The hold on Balthamos tightened; his eyes shut and he let out a choked whimper.

If Baruch had still been human, his heart would have been hammering in his chest. “Let him go,” he said, careful to keep his voice low. “Let us both go, or we shall have this whole world of monsters down on you. You can’t keep us both silent.”

A long moment went by.

At last the voices hissed in resignation, and the hold on Baruch was released. He faltered slightly in mid-air before resuming the steady wingbeats that kept him hovering near Balthamos.

_ Very well. We have fed enough for one day. _

“Now him,” Baruch said, still quiet.

Another hiss, even more displeased than the last, but the spectral threads pinning Balthamos in place snapped apart. He would have fallen, but Baruch was there in time and caught him in his arms. The connection restored in full; their thoughts flooded once more into each other’s minds, and Baruch didn’t bother to hold back the tears of his own relief and Balthamos’s pain stinging his eyes.

“It’s all right,” he murmured to Balthamos. “I have you.”

Balthamos threw his arms around him and clung to him, and said nothing.

“Thank you,” Baruch said to the now-empty blackness. He didn’t wait for an answer before flying away at top speed.

_ “Thank you?”  _ Balthamos repeated, voice muffled in his shoulder and trembling, retreating as he always did into sarcasm as a defense against the terror still drowning him. “I suppose I admire your tact, though at the moment I do not share it in the slightest.”

“You never do.” He kissed Balthamos on the forehead.

At that moment he finally spied what he had been looking for: a telltale iridescent crack in the air that meant a way out for angels. Right now he didn’t care what world they stepped into as long as it was away from here.

They ended up emerging on the slope of a mountain, high enough to see a sprawling green valley beneath them, but low enough that the wind was only chilly instead of biting, and there were still trees surrounding them. Once he was on solid ground, Baruch snapped his wings in to avoid being pulled this way and that by the wind and turned to make sure the way was sealed behind them. He watched it with satisfaction.

Now that the danger was really over, Balthamos didn’t have to hide behind sarcasm; he let out a sob, burying his face in Baruch’s neck, and Baruch could finally see the full memories of what that creature had subjected him to. He shuddered and clutched Balthamos tighter, his wings folding around them both.

“It’s all right,” he said again, softly, sinking down into the grass and nestling Balthamos against him. “We’re safe.”

“I watched you  _ die – _ ”

“It was just a vision, Balthamos; it wasn’t real. I’m here.” He ran his hand down Balthamos’s wings, stroking the feathers. That always helped calm him. “You saw it once before, and that  _ was  _ real, and yet I’m still here with you. Nothing shall ever change that.”

Enfolded protectively in Baruch’s arms, some of the tension began to drain out of him. “Perhaps that is true,” he whispered. “But – do not let go just yet, Baruch, please.”

“Never,” Baruch promised, and pressed his lips to the crown of Balthamos’s head.


End file.
